By Sara Valle
Laura Silverstone had a dream that one day she would become a musician. Way before Simple Plan and Green Day posed on the posters plastered on her bedroom walls, she’d already learn to play the accordion.
“Music in my day-to-day life is like drinking water, like eating. It’s the most essential part,” she says. “I play every day; I sing every day… It’s my main form of communication. It’s my reason for being.”
Silverstone picked up guitar when she was 13. Shortly after, she started posting covers to her YouTube page for friends and family to see. This quickly turned into a passion that led her to busking with a friend in the streets of Bilbao, her hometown. It was then she realised she’d have to leave home to make it.
Heartwood: Silverstone Undresses Her Soul in New Album
A year ago, Silverstone radically changed the tuning of her guitar to experiment with percussion. She says she couldn’t stop chasing the joy it filled her with. “I let the guitar lead like I hadn’t done before and I found a new way to communicate, a new sound”.
During the next few months, she travelled through Asia and Europe, writing down the stories, emotions, and experiences.
Silverstone says her new album, Heartwood, is “about the many colours that make life a bloody good trip. It’s about the joy of doing what you love, the sense of adventure, the uncertainty, the romance, the failures, the getting back ups and the meaning of home”.
Silverstone crowdfunded her second studio album, Heartwood, on Kickstarter. She pledged over £4,000. She worked alongside John Cornfield, who has recorded and produced some of the biggest names in music like Robert Plant, Oasis, Verve, Supergrass, The Stone Roses, Muse, and Ben Howard.
In Heartwood, which will be released July 12, Silverstone guides the listener through a raw and emotional tale of falling in love, finding home after leaving home, and finding solace during heartbreak.
“I may be a little old school, but I feel that nothing tells a story like a music album does. It’s not a song, not an isolated story or context, it’s the compilation of the many songs, the colours, the ups and downs, the melancholic song followed by the joyous one. It’s a ride full of dynamics that takes you away and a little bit closer to yourself”, says Silverstone.
Silverstone has had enough experiences to write two studio albums, learning and growing in a journey in which leaving homeland Spain was just the first stop.
Strumming Dreams: Busking and Touring
“I moved to the UK chasing the dream of pursuing music, come what may,” says Silverstone, now 28. “When I moved, I had very little money and was in a precarious situation. I took my guitar to the streets and literally played to earn a meal.”
Moving to the UK was a tough decision. Silverstone worked in a kitchen and as a carer for years before making music her main career. She also had to detach herself from her previous life and loved ones to see clear. On a phone call to Bilbao, her mum Mercedes jokes she’s “stubborn”.
“I’m okay as long as she’s happy and she’s happy with her life and her job. Would I like it if she lived closer? Yes, of course. I’d love it. But her happiness is what matters to me,” says Mercedes.
“It’d be easier if she was a doctor or a lawyer, but what can one do? She’s followed the path she desired, her dream, and it makes me happy and proud.”
Silverstone has been busking for the last ten years, based out of her van in Edinburgh and playing around Europe. She’s made a big group of friends and fellow musicians that have seen her grow.
Kevin McCann is one of them. They met during a Folk Club night in Isle of Skye. “Most of the regulars, including myself, had played already, me on fiddle. Near the end, from my left-hand side, I looked to see and hear for the first time: Laura.”
She sang Txoria Txori, a Basque song by Mikel Laboa about unrequited love. “I was moved by her warm voice and the song. I immediately took up my violin to accompany that legendary song,” he says, inviting her to join him onstage “with her huge guitar, huge eyes, huge voice, and presence”.
McCann has plenty of photos of the time they spent together (shown above). Silverstone has a big smile on her face in every shot, her eyes full of hope.
From Streets to Stage: Lap Tapping in Spain’s Got Talent
Silverstone knew she’d record an album and she released her first record, The Fall of the Northern Star, in 2017. She dreamt she’d play with Springsteen and, even though she didn’t, she did get a harmonica and a hug from The Boss himself when she saw him live in Ireland in 2013.
But she never thought she’d be on TV – although she had a cameo in a Spanish TV series’s pilot when she was a child.
She was coming back from Thailand, listening to a podcast where an ex-contestant talked about her experience on a TV show. She thought to herself “maybe now is the moment”. She didn’t even have time to plan – Spain’s Got Talent got in touch before she could board the flight back home.
The jury loved her so much that she ended up getting the golden buzzer, going straight to the semi-finals. “I don’t believe in destiny, but sometimes weird things happen, and I feel like the universe is listening. When things like this happen, I look up at the sky and say ‘Universe, I want a rich boyfriend’,” she laughs.
Notes of Perseverance and the Art of Busking
There have been hiccups. Silverstone says the nerve-racking experience was not all she had hoped for. She wasn’t allowed to play her own songs and didn’t win the show – she says the TV appearance hasn’t really helped her career. But she impressed one of the toughest juries with her lap tapping and powerful voice.
Silverstone also met some people that share the same dream, like Kat Almagro, who played percussion for her during her cover performance of Springsteen’s Born to Run. They’ve also worked together on Heartwood.
She talks about her experience as a journey full of stories, full of people, and full of people who’ve turned into stories. Silverstone says it allows her to keep learning every day.
“My lyrics are not more mature, but things that were new or shocking before stop being that relevant with time. So, when I tell myself ‘this is the last heartbreak song I write’, I’m lying. Things come back and you’re doomed to go through them again,” she says.
“Now I’m able to see beyond the emotions you bleed out when you’re experiencing things first-hand,” adds Silverstone. “Street music and art can be different, though connected, and I’m proud to have learned and lived through it,” she says.
Part of what she’s learnt is reflected on Heartwood.
“I know these songs, I have played them hundreds of times, they are a part of me but also my bread and butter, my everyday ringtone. Now I want people to have them, I want them to connect with them and to send them to a friend that they know will understand. Because music is made to unite us, to make us all feel more relatable and less alone”.
You could say Laura Silverstone was born to run.
Laura Silverstone’s second studio album, Heartwood, is coming out July 12. You can buy it here.
Link to published article: https://hollowayexpress.org.uk/laura-silverstone-harmony-and-ambition/
Sara Valle 